Goldendaze-ginnie

Serene 86 year old looking to exchange insightful ideas and remembrances.

Sunday, August 28, 2016

… the impatience of youth !

While
driving home today I listened with interest to an NPR segment that
was honoring the 100th Anniversary of the National Park
Service. The show originated
from Yellowstone Park and the commentator was interviewing people
from all over the world who were there enjoying the sites and, in
particular, the spectacular geyser known as Old Faithful.All
of a sudden I was in another year (1956) and another car (my
rinky-dink Ford, named “Old Betsy”) heading to Yellowstone with
my friend Cherie. We were heading to the east coast and had planned
some stops along the way.One
place on our list was Yellowstone and the famous geyser. I remember
that we parked the car and then hiked a bit until we found the spot.
There was a Park Ranger nearby and, after waiting about 5 minutes, we
asked him when we could expect to see the eruption. “Oh, not too
long”, he said, “it should be spouting off within the hour.”WHAT?
A whole hour to wait ! Impossible ...we had miles to go and no time
to be sitting around twiddling our thumbs. To my great chagrin, as I
look back on it now, we thanked the man and left.

Now
here it is 60 years later and I have yet to see Old Faithful. I
listened as the commentator explained that it is one of the most
predictable geographical features on earth, erupting every 35 to 120
minutes. What idiots we were … losing out on this great experience ... just because, like much of the youth today, we didn't have the patience
!!

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Piper … “Joe Cool” of the runways !

You may have seen this on
YouTube a few months back but if not …

This is a true story about
Piper, the Border Collie, who helps to maintain wildlife control at
the Cherry Capital airport in Traverse City, Michigan. He has
actually been trained to shoo away ducks, geese, owls, foxes and
other critters.

There have been other
airports that use this technique but few, if any, have the dog's
owner working there too. He is Brian Edwards and has been an airport
operations supervisor since 2008. When he acquired Piper as a pup
in 2012 he soon realized he had a winner. Border Collies are born
herders and Piper was exceptionally adept at it. Brian decided to try
his hand at training the pup for work on the runway.

It took a lot of time and
patience ...especially getting Piper used to airplanes. This is not
natural to dogs. The gear he wears helped (reflective specs to avoid
dirt and debris and to shield his eyes from sunlight and ear muffs to
protect his hearing) and he overcame his fears. Now Piper has
become a vital asset to the airport.

It's very tempting to book
a flight to Traverse City just to see “Joe Cool” in action !

Thursday, August 18, 2016

“Beating a dead horse ...”

Wikipedia
writes: “beating
a dead horse is an
idiom that means a particular request or line of conversation is
already foreclosed or otherwise resolved, and any attempt to continue
is futile, or that to continue in any endeavor is a waste of time as
the outcome is already decided.”

Sound familiar? This is
exactly what's going on now with the Republicans in the Senate.
Despite the fact that
the FBI (again)
forcefully defended its decision to not criminally charge Hillary
Clinton they were obliged to turn over a variety of material from the
investigation to the Oversight Committee this week. The GOP
controlled Congress is now about to start an investigation that is
sure to be extremely costly and I wouldn't mind so much EXCEPT
….guess who is paying for this? That's right …WE, the TAXPAYERS
!!!

You can bet that not a
penny of this will affect the members of that committee … they
already have perks above and beyond the imagination of most of us
ordinary citizens ! But, think about it … how can we possibly
believe anything that will come out of this ? Much
of the material is classified and should be kept that way but you
know that there will be “leaks” ...and these will be half-truths
and conjectures.

There is no question that
Secretary of State Clinton was negligent in her Email use when in
office ...BUT ,,, what about these two Secretary of States who did
the same thing? Yep, you guessed it … the two paragons of virtue
are none other than Condoleeza Rice and Colon Powell ! I
guess that just goes to show that, after all is said and done, these
three are merely humans, after all.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Another amazing CONNECTION …

I've
been writing this blog since 2006 and one of the first things that I
wrote about was the wonderful experience that I and my family had in
the late 40's entertaining British sailors. It was World War II
and I was just 9 but I remember it vividly.

So
you can imagine my surprise when I received the following comment on
a blog entry that I had posted 10 years ago. It simply said “Was
your mum Ruth Lee?” The answer is yes and I contacted the writer
immediately hoping for more information

It
turns out that the person who commented was none other than the son
of one of the British sailors who practically lived with us during
those frightful years. Ron, his dad, was stationed at the Fargo
Naval Base and, after his initial visit, any time he and a buddy had
free time they would hop the train from Boston to Wellesley Hills.
If I remember correctly we even kept a spare room set up for their
impromptu visits !

Ron's
son Nick actually remembers my mother visiting their home in England
many years after the War ended. He thinks he may even have a picture
of her taken in the garden of their home. He is looking for that but
in the meantime he sent me this one of his Dad.

I
knew Ron immediately and it brought back all the times that we girls
(I was the youngest of 5 !) would rush to the train station if we
knew “our boys” would be coming to visit. Ron was always number
one off the train and the first thing that we would see was his huge
grin !

Thanks
so much for making the connection Nick. Those were special years and
your Dad was such a large part of it.

ADDENDUM; 8/18 Just got another email from Nick with this great picture of a friend of his dad's ...he said he's the one that brought Ron to our house for the first time !

Monday, August 08, 2016

Last look at my vacation …

After
a week in the Big Apple it was a distinct change to head north to my
Daughter and son-in-laws home in upstate NY. You might remember
that they are the ones that have the wonderful business called Bowen
Barn in Stanfordville.

Happily
for me they drove down to the City...along with their sweet little
Bela … and picked me up.

It
was wonderful to get back to their lovely home and I was very
impressed to see that they had a new addition…. A greenhouse !
It's very impressive and has already yielded a supply of veggies.
Of course the squash plants are very good at showing off and they
have kind of taken over as you see here:

It
was a wonderful week. Their home is secluded and set high with
lovely views so it was the recuperative rest that I needed and I
soaked it up.

For
years I have driven to their home but it's a good 14 hours from where
I live and both my car and I are not as young as we used to be so
….traveling by train was a great alternative. All in all a
wonderful two weeks

Wednesday, August 03, 2016

A short subway ride from the Big Apple

Here is my niece Wendy watering the flowers on the lovely roof top of the apartment where we spent 7 days together just a few weeks back. It felt very posh to have the circular staircase wend it's way up there and, although it was Brooklyn and not the actual City it was, as I labelled this entry, just a short subway ride from the center of the Big Apple and a lovely place to start off my vacation..

The weather was exceedingly hot so we didn't overdo it at any one time. However we managed a few excursions into the city and I just soaked up the atmosphere as it brought back memories of the time I lived there in 1957 to 1964. Many, many thanks to Wendy for making this possible !